Kentucky town to pay police chief in bitcoin

City employees in Vicco, Kentucky could be receiving their paychecks in the form of bitcoin as early as this month after officials there agreed on Monday to begin compensating the chief of police with the emerging crypto-currency.

City officials said on Monday this week that there won’t be a
problem with paying Vicco Police Chief Tony Vaughn electronically
using Bitcoin, an online-only digital form of currency that has
in recent months been accepted at an increasing number of
retailers around the world.

Bitcoin allows users to securely pay for goods and services with
near total anonymity, all while avoiding the regulations and
restrictions often imposed by state-controlled currencies, such
as the dollar.

Cris Ritchie for Kentucky’s Hazard Herald reported on Wednesday
that Vaughn made his request last month, and this week city
officials said they finished their research and would be willing
to pay the chief’s salary in bitcoin if that’s his preference.

"We done a checkup on it, and that's the way he wants paid,
and that's the way the city is going to pay him," City
Commissioner Claude Branson told the Herald.

“Basically his next paycheck” could be in bitcoin, Mayor
Johnny Cummings said to the paper. “They've set up the
accounts for Vicco and for Tony, so it can be transferred.”

"We just want to be on top of things, and up-and-coming and
more progressive as a city," the mayor added.

All applicable federal and state taxes will still be chopped from
the top of Vaughn’s salary each pay period, Cummings added, but
the remainder will be electronically converted and put in the
control of a city-run bitcoin account where funds will then be
instantaneously transferred to Vicco’s own digital wallet.

"I'm excited about it; it's a first for Vicco again,"
Vaughn told Richie, referring to an ordinance passed by the city
earlier this year that outlaws discrimination based on sexual
orientation. Last month, the United States Senate approved of a
similar bill that functions on a federal level — the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA — but that act has yet to clear
Congress.

But while the EDNA may eventually make its way to President
Barack Obama’s desk and be signed into law, no measures
whatsoever have been proposed in Congress just yet that would
require the government to pay federal employees in bitcoin.
Meanwhile, though, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wrote to
the Senate recently that virtual currencies, like bitcoin,
"may hold long-term promise, particularly if the innovations
promote a faster, more secure, and more efficient payment
system."

One bitcoin is currently worth US$1,230, up from $240 just one
month earlier. Earlier this year a Canadian man attempted to
sell his Alberta home for bitcoin, and the
University of Nicosia in Cyprus recently became the first
institution of its type to accept the virtual currency for
tuition.